The Burdens of the Young

Could there be a better time to be young? So many positive changes are being seen: a plethora of opportunities, the ability to express oneself as an individual, vastly improved relationships with the earlier generation, much greater autonomy in taking key life decisions, and the profusion of options in one’s work and personal lives. We are seeing an outpouring of creativity and heightened achievements at very young ages. New paths have opened, and technology is helping make life considerably easier.

 And yet, as a research project carried out recently among the young showed us, this is also an extraordinarily difficult time for the young. Opportunities bring along with them pressure; individual agency brings with it the need for difficult decisions; and the chance to put oneself out there in public means that one is also at the receiving end of opinions, of which there is no shortage.

 This is a generation that has faced the brunt of some of the most rapid changes that any generation might have seen. It is normal for most generations to feel this way, but in this case, there are strong reasons to believe so. It is as if every significant arena of one’s life has been fundamentally redefined. Whether it is work, friendships, family, personal relationships, entertainment and shopping, education, or knowledge production, everything has undergone a fundamental transformation.

An entirely new stream of life has opened out—a parallel virtual existence is now ours to populate with meaning. It gives freedoms of an unimagined kind. We can invent new personae, bask in our anonymity, experiment with our identity and opinions, and express sides of ourselves that would never have seen the light of day in an earlier time. And all this without any established mode of regulation. Unlike other social interactions, where we have well-established norms of behaviour, this is the Wild West, behaviour-wise.

 As a result, this is a generation that needs to invent all rules for itself and then live by those while they are still being formed. This is a profound change and a tremendous responsibility. My generation knew the rules; it may not have liked them, but it knew what was expected of it. Gender roles were defined, career expectations were clear, work life had a rhythm that was clearly defined, personal relationships were coded, and we knew how to behave with whom at what stage in life. In India, in particular, the law might have been a distant stranger, but social order was a looming presence, impossible to escape.

 Now everything is up in the air. Gender is fluid, sexuality is a genie that has been uncorked, and social media is a new beast that no one knows the rules of, nor do we know how to contain its destructive side. Technology has squeezed itself into every aspect of our lives, upending all previous notions about identity. In the face of all this, the older generation has little to offer by way of wisdom, as it struggles to internalise all that has changed. They are scarcely in any position to guide the young; if anything, they are seeking clarity from the next generation. Many might think of themselves more as friends than as authority figures, but that doesn’t make them any more useful when it comes to offering guidance.

 Questions abound. How do you plan a career given all the opportunities and uncertainties that abound? One can start earning at a very young age by doing stuff one is good at and becoming an influencer. One need not complete formal education to become an entrepreneur in one’s teens. Or one can refuse to work in an organisation and freelance one’s way into feeling freer. The meaning of success has changed, and there is a sense that everything is possible but that nothing is quite enough. The benchmarks are daunting. And have ballooned both vertically and horizontally. 19-year-olds are billionaires, 15-year-olds have millions of followers, and everyone’s Instagram bio reads like they are juggling eleven lives simultaneously.

The need to put one’s life on display at all times is a boon that comes with huge costs. The need to make a production of one’s life on a daily and highly granular basis puts tremendous pressure on every small bit of one’s life to be perfect. Any deviation causes anxiety. The need to live one’s life outside in causes a crisis of authenticity as one is not quite sure of who even is when no one is watching.

 It is not surprising that mental health is becoming a problem of significant proportions. There is a sense of burning out at an age which is meant to be the prime of one’s life. Things that were empowering can now feel burdensome: choice, individual agency, exposure to the world, the ability to express oneself, and career opportunities. All the freedoms that an earlier generation sought are now available, but at a price. Overstimulation and distraction make it difficult for the young to find moments when they can shut out the noise that surrounds them. If scarcity causes misery, abundance seems to be resulting in a constant state of anxiety.

 It is true that the young are not the only ones struggling to make sense of this new world. Societies and nations are going through upheavals as we see a new brand of politics and social discourse emerge that we cannot quite fathom. The media has changed beyond recognition, and our institutions do not function like they did.

 But it is the young that have far greater stakes in the future than the older generation does. Their lives are full of open questions, to which there are any number of answers, but with little direction as to which are the correct ones. For those of us who cannot fathom some of the choices the young make today, it is time to recognise just how bewildering it is to be young in this world.

 (This is a version of an article that has appeared previously in the Times of India)